Household appliances such as washers, dryers, irons, microwave ovens, gas ranges, blenders, dishwashers, refrigerators, lawn mowers, etc. are typically used for limited purposes, and are built without any capability to be connected to a communications network. As such, when a household appliance has a problem, the consumer has to call a telephone number to report the problem and/or to schedule an appointment for service. Generally, the service centers receiving calls from appliance owners have Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems that prompt for appliance information, e.g., a serial number, a model number, the manufacturing date, the purchase date, the purchase location, the problems with the appliance, and so on. Unfortunately, consumers often have problems providing the requested information. For example, the serial number, model number, etc. may not be easily accessible. In another example, the customer may not have registered the appliance when the appliance was purchased and the customer may no longer be able to locate the requested information.
Therefore, there is a need for a method and apparatus to retrieve information from household appliances.